A perspective from Deborah Armstrong, Senior Vice President, Disney Advertising EMEA & Country Manager, UK & Ireland
Disney Advertising has been on a journey toward automation and true interoperability for years, with connectivity to more than 35 DSPs in the US and continued global growth. The next phase builds on years of investment and innovation across Disney’s advertising technology infrastructure, bringing greater connectivity, automation and flexibility to advertisers, while enabling a more seamless path from audience insight to measurable impact.
Since Disney+ first launched an ad-supported subscription option in EMEA in 2023, it has expanded the ad tier to 15 European markets, providing a prime opportunity for advertisers to tap into the fandom of our audience within a premium, brand-safe environment. Our EMEA customer base for Disney+ is growing fast in the region – up by more than 25% since the start of 2025, and over the same period those customers are choosing to watch more – with growth of more than 10% in average viewing per retail subscriber.
The advertising industry continues to transform. As audiences engage with streaming and brands demand greater precision and transparency, the opportunity to combine television’s reach, digital accountability, and premium storytelling has never been greater.
Against this backdrop, Disney's expansion of its advertising business across EMEA has been deliberate and strategic, reflecting what advertisers value most. We have focused on delivering a premium, measurable and accessible advertising experience, while preserving the impact of our brand portfolio.
Thousands of brands have already joined us, building on Disney’s long-established advertising business in the market.
As we begin the latest chapter, we’re mapping the strength of Disney’s global advertising capabilities to EMEA. Campaigns in EMEA will now run on the Disney Ad Server. This will create a unified global foundation for how advertising is delivered across Disney+, providing greater control, consistency and transparency across markets. Over the coming year, we’re expanding our technology foundation to enable a fully connected advertising ecosystem, designed to make it easier for brands to plan, activate, and measure at scale.
This means strengthening our offering by integrating proven products and capabilities from Disney Advertising’s technology stack – solutions already trusted by our advertising partners in the U.S.
We’re also rolling out more tailored solutions in measurement, targeting and deal type flexibility, which can be curated to serve the unique and individual market and brand needs.
On the pathway to integrated, biddable solutions
From day one we knew that interoperability is key. We have already made Disney+ easy to buy by integrating with over 10 of the most widely-used DSPs, including Amazon DSP, The Trade Desk and Google Display & Video 360, making buying as frictionless as possible.
The integration of Disney’s Real-Time Ad Exchange “DRAX” to our EMEA platform gives brands a more direct connection between advertiser demand and Disney+ inventory while enabling greater programmatic flexibility in how Disney+ inventory is accessed and transacted over time – all while letting buyers continue to use the workflows they already know.
Driving Measurable Impact
Measurement has always been a key priority, and we already work with leading measurement bodies in each territory, like BARB in the UK (where we were the first SVOD to sign up) and Médiamétrie in France alongside others.
As we continue to evolve our tech-enabled ecosystem, Disney’s Audience Graph will help unlock more connected, measurable and impactful audience engagement across EMEA.
Amid this evolution, our focus remains unchanged: offer a brand-safe, premium environment where audiences and fans are deeply engaged and emotionally connected, powered by product integration and platform infrastructure designed to maximize campaign impact.